


stranger things have come and gone / to see the world and take the throne

by thatlittleblackcat



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Multi, The Raven King - Freeform, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatlittleblackcat/pseuds/thatlittleblackcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All things considered, the aftermath had been peaceful. </p><p>// the gang moves on from the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stranger things have come and gone / to see the world and take the throne

**Author's Note:**

> Finally finished The Raven King (▰˘◡˘▰) had a lot of feelings that I had to spit out, which accumulated in this tiny tiny fic. clearly, my finals do not matter to me. Title from the lyrics of American Author's I'm Born To Run.

All things considered, the aftermath had been peaceful. They had emerged onto the main road, exhausted, dirtied, drained, just as the police cars had begun to make their way onto the dusty tracks on the outskirts of town— they hadn’t realised that time had slipped from their fingers just like that. It had been 6:21 for what had felt like an eternity, time looping in on itself, circling and circling like how vultures circled a carcass. There had even been a dead body too, then. Gansey’s body had been still and warm in her arms, Blue Sargent remembered against her will, with his soundless chest pressed against the diaphragm of her own, a loud reminder that Richard ‘Dick’ Campbell Gansey III no longer existed in the world. But that was all over now. That was in the past, a lingering memory, a vestige of history meant to be forgotten as time had rushed on after Gansey had opened his eyes. Now, at 11:01 at night, Gansey was very much alive, his heartbeat a comforting rhythm against the heel of her palm, and he was very much still warm. 

Blue didn’t think she could love him anymore than she had before, but she did now. 

Gansey’s mother had just barely held herself together when she saw Gansey slumped at the back of a BMW over Blue’s lap. Cabeswater had given him life, yes— had made him a King even— but at that moment, he was just a teenager who had been through a terrible ordeal, and it showed in the blue under his eyes and the lines that etched themselves across hollows of his cheekbones. Gansey’s father called the police off and Helen held the paparazzi off, who despite their eagerness for any discriminating photographs that could tear Gansey’s mother’s campaign apart, respected the powerful voice of Helen Gansey, a Queen in her own right just as her brother was King.

They had all been rushed to the hospital after that. Maura Sargent had appeared at the entrance just as Blue followed Gansey’s stretcher into the hospital, and hugged her daughter fierce and tight. Blue, for all the independence that she strove towards, melted against the frame of her mother and had been never more glad to be a child of someone. 

Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish had hung around each other, unwilling to leave each other’s sight. They were alone and parentless, but they were also together and no longer just children, and that was all that had mattered. Such a symbiotic creature they were, a strange mirror image of each other, unbalanced but whole, and it showed in the silent glances they threw at each other as their wounds were tended to. The nurses left after they had cleaned them up perfunctorily, giving them a quiet space with orders to rest well. The real wounds, the nurses knew, were the ones that were unseeable, the ones that gave a drained slant to Ronan’s shoulders, the ones that made Adam’s hands tremble unconsciously. It didn’t stop Adam from pressing a butterfly kiss to the junction of Ronan’s shoulder blade, nor did it stop Ronan from pressing Adam’s fingers to his lips. Just like that, the ragged edges of their invisible pain soothed a tiny bit. 

The nurses on the night shift that night agreed that the boys in room 12 were the only medicine for each other. 

Henry Cheng, non-magician, non-dreamer, but all friend, was not required to be admitted to the hospital on account of his lack of injuries. Together, he and Blue had shepherded Orphan Girl away from prying eyes back to 300 Fox Way, and for the next few days, he strove to restore the Henrietta life that he had always known, even though he knew now that nothing would ever be the same. He brought Gansey’s trademark orange Camaro back, brought apples and herbal teas to Gansey’s hospital room, brought Blue back to the old mansion where roboBee— actually, the birds— had led them to the night Gansey had died and revived. He knew that someday Gansey would have to come back here, but not now. Not soon. What for, when he had an entire lifetime to come back? 

“A lifetime,” said Gansey when Henry and Blue had returned, the joy palpable in his voice. 

“A lifetime,” Blue confirmed, eyes bright and happy as she lay her forehead against his. 

“A lifetime,” Henry echoed, “but first, let’s see if we can get through our gap year alive.” 

They had all laughed, excited at the possibilities the future— the faceless, unknown future— held. There was nothing worse that could befall them, that much they knew. And that much was enough. 

***

Ronan and Adam visited Gansey less frequently than he would have hoped for them to, but they were busy in their own right. Adam began his move to the Barns the minute he had been discharged, something that Ronan had been extremely pleased about, but snapped at anyone (Blue, namely) who pointed out his happiness. 

Ronan and Adam had also gone to make a grave for Aurora Lynch. They chose a clearing in the middle of the forest that had taken over where Cabeswater had been, a patch of grass where the sun shone directly on it through the clearing of the trees. It was obscure and inaccessible unless one knew the path well, and that was how it had been when Aurora Lynch was alive. Ronan’s mother, dream of a dreamer, sun of her son, secret to the world. And so secret she was to remain. Ronan knelt and placed a little gravemarker on the ground, fashioned from his dreams and covered in vines and roses. 

It made Adam’s breath catch each time he looked at it. It was a reminder that everything did happen, that no matter how strange, how other-worldly or how far away it felt, it had happened. He brought his hands up into the sunlight, watching his fingers twitch and dispel the dust filtering in the sunlight. Magic had run through them once. Now there was none, but magic still lived in the boy in front of him. Once upon a time, this would have made Adam feel inadequate, like he was not enough, like he was unfavoured. But now, it just made him release a little thankful sigh. The magic didn’t necessarily flow in him anymore, but he was still Adam Parrish with or without Cabeswater. Ronan, on the other had, was only Ronan because he was magical in of himself, just as he had always been. Just as Adam had always known him to be. Magical and dazzling. 

“What’re you smiling about, Parrish,” Ronan said. He had pushed himself off from the grass to stand beside Adam, close enough that Adam could smell the faint scent of moss and dirt and grass rolling off him. 

“Mmm,” Adam hummed. “You.” 

He turned just in time to see the shock and wonder flit across Ronan’s face, his wonderfully charming and boyish face, his usually sharp features soft with his astonishment and slight disbelief. Disbelief that Adam had chosen him, over and over and over again without question, without doubt. 

Sometimes Adam was in disbelief too, and it was because that Ronan had chosen him as well. 

“Such a sap,” Ronan laughed, his features schooling back into its usual wolfish expression. “This can’t be real. Maybe I’m dreaming.” 

Adam rose to his tiptoes, looping his arms around Ronan’s neck for balance. “Thanks for the straight teeth then,” he murmured against Ronan’s lips before swallowing his startled laugh. 

As Ronan tightened his grip around Adam’s waist, slotting his fingers against his vertebrae, Adam suddenly felt excitement for the future —the faceless, unknown future— because Ronan was as fearless as he was tender and because Ronan would be there with him, always. There was nothing worse that could befall them, that much he knew. And that much was enough. 

***

All things considered, the aftermath had been peaceful. They had emerged from the path their adventures had taken them on older, wiser, happier, just as the sleepy town of Henrietta had righted itself, realigning itself to the ways of its new universe. Now, time ticked by, slowly but surely. It was no longer a time of terror, of uncertainty and doubt, of the unwillingness to move anywhere but remain stuck instead. Now time moved, towards the future. And so did they.


End file.
